Rick Minter, Senior Writer

Rick Minter joined The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 1991, where he covered motorsports as well as serving as a bureau chief.
From 2000-2008 he focused on racing exclusively, traveling the NASCAR circuit as the paper’s motorsports writer and winning awards from several organizations including the Georgia20 Automobile Racing Hall of Fame Association and the City of Atlanta.
Minter and his wife Joanne live on the family farm in Inman, Ga. In his spare time he collects and restores antique tractors and trucks.

Articles by Rick Minter

By Rick Minter | Senior Writer
RacinTodayt.com
There aren’t many days that go by lately that the late Beau Slocumb doesn’t come to mind. And most times those thoughts also include Ryan Newman, who was a great friend to Slocumb, in the good times and bad, all the way to the end.
I followed Slocumb’s career as he [...]

By Rick Minter | Senior Writer
RacinToday.com
It’s pretty certain that any remaining questions about whether Brad Keselowski would make it in the Sprint Cup Series were answered by his “Ironman” performance in winning on Sunday at Pocono Raceway while driving with a foot badly injured in a crash at Road Atlanta four days before.
But it’s not [...]

When the news broke that Nashville Superspeedway wouldn’t be seeking sanctions for NASCAR’s Nationwide or Camping World Truck Series races next year, it wasn’t much of a surprise. There have been better crowds for dirt Late Model races than what Nashville
pulled in recent races.
But there’s still a great sense of sadness, for the track and [...]

By Rick Minter | Senior Writer
RacinToday.com
The Georgia Racing Hall of Fame in Dawsonville is no match for the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte, but for racing folks in the Peach State, it’s still a big deal.
And this year’s class of inductees show just how big a role Georgians have played in NASCAR – and [...]

By Rick Minter | Senior Writer
RacinToday.com
From the time David Ragan first started running Legends cars at Atlanta Motor Speedway’s quarter-mile track, the question was: “Will he ever make it to the Sprint Cup Series?”
His father, Ken Ragan, was a part-timer on the circuit now known as Cup, and once young David started racing, Ken moved [...]

There’s been news aplenty in the NASCAR world the past few days. Most of it has tended to be on the negative side, although the sport’s spin doctors have tried to make it appear otherwise.
One of the most fun weekends of the year, the truck and Nationwide races at Lucas Oil Raceway, is being shut [...]

By Rick Minter | Senior Writer
RacinToday.com
Now that the majority of the NASCAR teams are headquartered around Concord, N.C., and the new, official NASCAR Hall of Fame is in Charlotte, there’s a perception that NASCAR has its roots in the Carolinas.
But there are plenty of Georgians who beg to differ.
As writer and historian Brandon Reed pointed [...]

The ongoing debate over who should be enshrined in the NASCAR Hall of Fame is healthy because it causes people to think about who their heroes – racing and otherwise – really are.
For many, their racing heroes aren’t the Pettys and Pearsons of NASCAR. They’re the short track racers they watched every Saturday night at [...]

Sprint Cup races at Michigan International Speedway, where the circuit is racing this weekend, have a way of turning into gas mileage/strategy races, as have several recent races in both the Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series.
The reasons races play out that way are numerous. For starters, the caution periods in the latter part of the [...]

By Rick Minter | Senior Writer
RacinToday.com
Concord, N.C. – A driver should know the situation is serious when their car owner accompanies them to a press conference, as was the case with both Trevor Bayne and Kyle Busch at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Thursday.
In Bayne’s case, it was a serious medical issue that was being dealt [...]